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The current row between those demanding the progressives in Congress do something and those demanding they be allowed to soak up money and fame with no questions asked is the exact same row we had for 4 years with the Corbyn inner circle. To explain 1/10.
It became obvious from day one, right back in 2015, that the Labour Party right were never going to accept the membership election Corbyn. They were going to work flat out to destroy his leadership and remove any possibility of Labour being a rallying point of genuine opposition.
So from the start in 2015 a minority of us who supported Corbyn were arguing that a move had to be made against the Labour Party right, they had to be threatened with deselection as that was the only way of stopping them in their bid to train wreck the whole party.
And from the very beginning we got all the same excuses, hand wringing and apologetics our friends in the USA are getting from the Sanders inner circle now "the time isn't right" or "we don't want to alienate people" all just waffle to cover cowardice.
As things got worse and it became clear that Corbyn was capitulating we started to argue that a counter weight to the right wingers had to be organised to pressure Corbyn from the left. The reason being that if all the pressure on him comes from the right then that's who wins.
The same excuses came up from the Corbyn cheer leaders "how dare you!" or "Jeremy is under enough pressure" etc. All his big name supporters wanted was the membership to be Corbyns cheerleading squad, to never ask anything of him and never pressure him.
The result of these abominably cowardly tactics was that Corbyn capitulated to the right wingers on every single thing that mattered and the party got anihilated by the Tories.
There's a reason why the Corbyn inner circle never wanted pressure being organised against them and it's because for many of them they simply weren't in this for the fight. Not really. Politics for them was just a nice, safe, well remunerated career.
They did not want to have a fundamental confrontation with the Labour Party right and they did not want to mobilise the hundreds of thousands who would have answered any call from Corbyn to mobilise. They did not want that because that would mean a head on confrontation.
A head on confronation not just with the Labour Party right wing but with the forces of the British ruling class, who the LP right really answer to. Unfortunately, as we were in a very low level of class struggle we ourselves could not force that.
The same factors apply in the USA today. The progressives in Congress do not want a confrontation with Pelosi. Under any circumstances because they want to simply be an opposition in name only, take the money, build their brands and cash out.
These are not people who are capable of waging determined, relentless struggle but instead a bunch of social climbers who rode Sanders coattails in 2016 then helped turn his 2020 campaign into a bunch of IDPOL bull shit.
These are not people who are in congress as the result of mass working class action but middle class electoral games. That's not a solid basis for anything other than careerism.
I have no time for the excuses and cowardice of these cretins and neither should you, no matter how "radical" they dress it up. I've met guys who been denied work for years at a time as they were blacklisted for being active trade unionists, they never gave up.
I've met men who were in the 84-85 miners strike. 12 months out with the government machine working against them, betrayed by their own movement and still they didn't break. So i've no zero time for some sniveller who wants you to feel bad for daring to ask them to do something
